Rebirth of the Phoenix God

Chapter 68: Escaping the colloseum

A quick scan of Fen's surrounding revealed that the power of something that could only be called as partial self-explosion was actually far greater than he expected. It was as if the sharp pain that continued to bother his neck was actually nothing but a slight inconvenience when compared to the damage that was supposed to hit him.

When Fen ignited his blood for the second time, he intiialy expected that maybe it would be enough to kickstart this double flow of his once again. Sadly, that was not the case at all. Yet, looking at how it somehow managed to create a huge hole in the bottom of the tribunes, Fen could only wonder how the heck he ended up with a neckpain instead of his head detaching itself from the rest of his body!

'There is no time for that'

Shaking his head for the nth time during the day in order to clear his head from the useles thoughts, the young man quickly analyzed the situation. While seriously injured, the inquisitor was quickly gathering his strength to go after him. At the same time, his trainees on the tribunes were already running down the stairs towards the barriers that separated the audience from the participants of the fight, with a clear intention of joining the fray.

The only redeeming point of the current situation was how envoy has yet to order his own troops to go after the young man!

'I need to run.'

Returning with his sight towards the hole in the stone walls that otherwise surrounded and locked him in place, Fen made up his mind. Pulling himself together, he moved up. Back on his feet, the young man started moving towards the opening in the wall. With every step he made, the natural balance of his movements continued to return to his muscles, quickly allowing him to pick up the pace and start outright running.

"STOP HIM!"

Finally capable of shouting anything after ingesting Fen's fires directly into his lungs, the main inquistior pointed his hand at the young man as he shouted. Taking a quick peek to the side, Fen noticed how the man attempted to stand up and give chase, only for his legs to give up resulting in the ugly face of the inquisitor falling right down into the ground.

"CATCH HIM!"

"SOUND THE ALARM!"

Those shouts quickly followed the ordination of the inquisitor, but it went without saying that so far only the people connected directly to the inquisition bothered to act like the hunds during the chase. Thankfully, once Fen managed to reach the breach in the base of the tribunes, most of those noises were cancelled by the thick walls that remained standing.

'I need to find the exit'

The inner structure of the colosseum was an labyrinth by itself. With no idea what kind of reasons the architect behind this place had when creating those meandering corridors that Fen was currently traversing, all the young man could do was to blindly run forward, hoping that soon enough he would find a way to get out of this place.

Sadly, it didn't seem that it would even be the case. 

From the slight curvature of the corridor that he was running through, Fen quickly understood that this place went around the entire place. If he were to keep going like that, he would eventually end up at the other side of the breach he used to actually enter this corridor in the first place!

"If there is no exit Then I just need to do one myself!"

As stupid it might seem to modify the base structure when an enormous building used it to support its own weight, Fen didn't really have any other realistic choice. Going back to the arena was aking to putting his hurting neck to gallows. Staying in this place also wouldn't bear any fruits, as sooner or later someone would bother to check whether he didn't attempt to just wait the initial phase of the chase out. 

'Isn't this a normal stone?'

Touching the rough surface of the walls that created the corridor, Fen made this observation. Being a former hunter he was, recognising this kind of natural material was perfectly normal. After all, in order to survive in the forest with all kinds of monsters and animals only waiting for him to appear, using everything at one's disposal to gain the edge over those naturally more powerful beings was a must.

"Let's try it then."

Instead of relying on the muscle memory passed down to him by his ancestors, Fen turned towards the things that he learned by himself. Allowing his fire to surface right on top of his pointing finger, the young man continued to increase its temperature to the point where even with his utmost efforts he couldn't raise it any higher.

'Please, let it work'

Praying to any random entity that could potentially be watching the events from above and would actually bother to influence the situation, Fen put the small yet nearly whitish fire towards the wall Only to realise that instead of resisting it, the stone didn't even melt! 

It simply evaporated!

Rather than clearing the space big enough for himself to comfortably walk through, Fen created a circle small enough for him to barely squeeze through. With the voice of the pursues entering the long corridor already reaching his ears, Fen finished the curvature of the cut, before pushing the piece of stone forward light enough, to still have the time to catch it before it would fell down and alert everyone about his presence in the corridor!

As the voices of his pursuers continued toget closer, Fen quickly cleared the entry from the stone he cut away from it, before forcing himself to enter the dark space on the other side of the wall. No matter what was hidden there, it would be highly unpropable for anything more dangerous than his pursues to await there!

Putting the stone circle right back into the hole, Fen decided to remain in this dark place for a moment. Soon enough, the voices of the people chasing him reached its peak only to start distancing themselves once again, as they passed by now hidden Fen's escape route and continued to run around the entire circumvention of the enormous colosseum. 

'Okay then, it's time to move out..'

Allowing himself to create only the smallest flame that he was capable of sustaining, Fen quickly walked around the room only to confirm that this palce was nothing else but one of the old, abandoned changing rooms that they were warned to not enter due to the high population of pests nesting there!

Not sure whether that story was just a random one made up by Stiel and other teachers in order to keep their students from wandering off to the secluded places or if that was the real reason behind that request, Fen was as far from willingness to check it as one could get. As soon as the young man located the doors and confirmed that no voice or light indicated anyone's presence on the other side, he pressed the doors open and continued to move as far away from the direction where that room was as he could. Given how the entire colosseum was made on the plan of a perfect circle, that was the easiest way to find the way out of the entire thing!